In a two-party system, parties become a bit of everything. This raises the question: What, exactly, is the Democratic Party? Who or what drives it? The blog 538 took a couple of cracks at this. Most notably, Nate Silver wrote about the ‘5 Corners‘ of the Democratic Party. And that’s what I’m going to look at in this post. His colleague Perry Bacon Jr., in a post on Democratic Party politicians, wrote about the party’s ‘Six Wings‘. Does Silver (or Bacon) get it right?
Category: Partisan Politics (Page 14 of 18)
Let’s start with an argument. It’s a general argument about electability, but that’s no fun. Instead, I’ll use the more provocative case of Bernie Sanders. The motivating claim is that electability stands in tension with systemic change. Or, to put it differently, that not being a threat to the capitalist system is a prerequisite to attaining electability. Replace ‘Bernie Sanders’ with any other candidate and it works roughly the same. With other candidates, it’s usually so obvious it approaches triviality.
Here’s the argument.
1. Either Bernie Sanders is electable or he isn’t.
2. If Bernie Sanders is electable, his presidency isn’t a threat to capitalism.
3. If Bernie Sanders isn’t electable, his presidency isn’t a threat to capitalism.
4. Therefore, a Bernie Sanders presidency isn’t a threat to capitalism.
So, social democracy and taxes? I’m going to approach this topic from a couple of angles. First, I’ve made some efforts in the past to distinguish between progressivism, social democracy, and socialism. But I want to say more about this. I think these terms, albeit unsettled, pick out importantly different political philosophies. Taxation forms an entry-point to thinking about these differences.
Second, Elizabeth Warren recently worked her way into a bit of a jam. She’s struggling with how to pay for Medicare for All, a set of bills proposed by Pramila Jayapal and Bernie Sanders that would create a robust, comprehensive, world-class single-payer health insurance system. Warren worked her way into this jam, I’ll argue, because she’s a progressive who backed her way in to endorsing a social democratic idea. The news endlessly covers the entire kerfuffle, but I think the press sees this less as a philosophical problem than a policy problem. On the contrary, I think it’s primarily a philosophical problem opening up over the topic of taxes.
So, the third Democratic debate was last night. But, really, let’s start with a confession. I think these debates are pointless. Lots of grandstanding and one-liners. As a result, I usually don’t watch. I follow some of the coverage and watch highlights.
Most of what I have to say is based on that.
Kirsten Gillibrand isn’t going to win the Democratic nomination in 2020. And she probably won’t even win a single delegate. Even former staffers are calling her campaign ‘obnoxious and performative’ and asking her to quit the race. As a result, my own guidelines might suggest I shouldn’t write a post about her campaign. But I’m going to write about it anyway. I’m going to do it because I think she’s centering her campaign on an idea no one else has ever taken up for a major national campaign. That idea is gender-identitarianism.
Let’s explore this in more depth.
